THE CLIO BOREALIS ON THE COAST OF MAINE. 



187 



pertaining to the study of Natural History, but especially of the minute and 

 transparent acalephs or jelly fishes, which, clear as the waters in which they 

 float, are very much more difficult to detect than these colored Clios. 



That naturally the shores of Labrador are the most southerly bounds of its 

 migrations, its visits to our waters being as rare as already indicated, is ren- 

 dered still further probable by the fact that the genus Clio, was originally 

 instituted by Brown, in his " Natural History of Jamaica", to include a tropical 

 species, but the name was subsequently adopted and modified by Linnaeus 

 and applied to the only representative of the class known by him, the Clio 

 borealis, the genus Cleodora having been at a later date created to receive the 

 original Clio of Brown. This animal belongs therefore, to a division of the 

 Mollusca, called Pteropoda or " Wingfoot", from the swimming appendages 

 which resemble the organs of flight in birds, and forms one of the six genera 

 into which it is divided, each genus being represented by a single or a very 

 limited number of species. 



The figure accompanying this article, drawn by Mr. Fuller, about double 

 the natural size, gives a very accurate idea of the general form of the animal. 

 It is of a soft jelly like consistency, having 

 a pearly or opaline color with the extremities 

 or shaded portions, as seen in the figure, of 

 a bright red color. It is so nearly transparent, 

 that the internal organs, the stomach, liver 

 &c. can be plainly seen occupying but a lim- 

 ited portion of the sac of which the body is 

 composed. Seen as delineated in the figure, 

 one would be puzzled to determine by what 

 process it contrives to nourish itself. But a 

 little observation shows that the head-piece is 

 capable of longitudinal division from before 

 backwards, the two upright tentacles becom- 

 ing horizontal, whilst from the inner surface 

 of each hemisphere protrude three other ten- 

 tacles which are at once understood to be the 

 organs by which its food is directed to the 

 mouth lying at the bottom of the fissure made 

 by the division of the head-piece. The formida- 

 ble array of numerous long curved teeth with which this mouth is armed seems 

 to indicate a method of existence quite at variance with the " angelic" cut of its 

 vestments, and is rather suggestive of the wolf in sheep's clothing. But after 

 close observation of them for many days, in glass jars and tanks, no food could 

 be detected going into the mouth, even when examined with a lens, but the 

 accumulation of a dark substance in the stomach in which Mr. Fuller detected 

 the presence of diatomaceous shields, and of a considerable quantity of excre- 

 mentitious matter at the bottom of the jar, proved that they were busy in 

 separating from the waters the invisible pabulum of life. 



